This Show Doesn't Feel The Same Anymore
by AimTrekRaider7
Summary: The kids are stupid, Sportaflop is hyper and Robbie is the only sane person left in town. It's a parody, folks!
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes:  
-I wanted this to be pure crack-fic, but it's really more of a parody.  
-As a Brit it's weird for me to use the word soccer instead of football, but I'm used to the American voices and technically they should all be speaking Icelandic, so…  
-Also, sorry Mum. And Magnus. And anyone who came here for a sensible plot.

Robbie stared glumly out of his periscope and sighed. Summer was wearing on, seemingly in no hurry to leave. Every day was more mind-numbing than the last; Sportaflop became more and more hyper and the children became more and more infuriatingly stupid. He couldn't even be bothered to scheme anymore because he was pretty certain that there was no-one left on the surface who could comprehend a full, sane sentence. He winced as the candy kid started gnawing on the stick he'd just picked up that had been lying next to the lollipop he'd just dropped.  
"MINE!"  
Robbie flinched, and nearly brained himself on the periscope. By the time he'd finished rubbing his head and stringing together every profanity he knew, the grabby kid had seized the lollipop and was rubbing it all over his face, giggling to himself with his eyes closed. He seemed to be mumbling the word 'mine'. Weird kids. He adjusted the periscope so he could see the rest of the playground. The gadget kid had his VR goggles on and a controller in his hands, but was lying on the ground motionless. Well, not quite. Every few seconds he twitched, and Robbie wondered if it was his duty as a human being to see if the twitching wasn't just a form of death-spasm. Prank kid seemed to have had the same idea, as she was lying next to him, poking him with a stick. Then again, her glazed eyes gave him the impression that she could just as well be poking an inanimate object. Pink kid was nowhere to be seen, and he wasn't sure if that filled him with relief or dread.

And then, the thing he'd been waiting for happened. Sportaflop fell out of his airship. Unfortunately, it had been drifting rather close to the ground, so the landing was more of a thud than a crunch. Still, it was satisfying for the three seconds it took for the elf to hop up off the floor, brush himself down and look round self-consciously before opening his mouth.  
"Anyonewanttoplayagame? Iwanttoplayagame!"  
Great. His sentences had now transcended to the realm of single words. The sound of screaming started up, distant at first but quickly growing in amplitude. A moment later and it was ear splitting. A short pink blur had appeared in his field of view and was bouncing up and down, much like Sportaflop, who hadn't stopped moving since getting up from the floor. The two were talking over each other, neither paying the slightest attention to the other's words- sentences- sounds... Whatever it was, it was pretty much unintelligible. He panned round to the other children, to see if they had reacted at all to the arrival of their hyperactive hero. Gadget kid had woken from his trance with a deathly groan that sounded something like 'soccer'. This was echoed by the other children, excluding the one bouncing enough to make him feel sick. The chanting became louder and louder, until it broke through the babbled 'conversation'. Sportaflop produced a soccer ball from nowhere, kicked it really far away and then sprinted off with the kids to retrieve it. The noise faded, and there was no-one in sight. Robbie took this opportunity to go and have a nap.

He awoke some unknown time later to the sound of screaming. It was surprising how quickly he had gotten used to doing that. A look through the periscope informed him that candy kid had managed to stab himself in the back of the throat with the stick he'd been chewing. This was then removed by pink kid, who was promptly tackled by grabby kid with a war-cry of "MIIIINNEE!". The throat injury turned out to be a false alarm as there was no blood anywhere and the crying had stopped in favour of laughing hysterically at the brawl between pink and grabby. That did nothing to stop the shrieking of Sportaflop's crystal, however. Robbie's estimate was that it had been going off for about a week by now, at varying levels of intensity. Either it was broken, or it knew that the degrading state of the town and its people had put everyone in permanent danger. He preferred the first option. As prank kid threw herself on top of the other two, Sportaflop screamed. He didn't actually say anything, but kept it up for long enough for the scrapping kids to notice. Once they did, they started screaming too, which meant that there were four of them making enough noise to wake the dead. Robbie took a moment to put on his industrial ear defenders before continuing to watch. Sportaflop was still bouncing, which made him look simultaneously comedic and disturbing, which would probably account for candy kid standing in silence with his mouth hanging open. He couldn't see gadget kid this time, but he wasn't too worried.

The odd scene carried on for a few moments more, now in silence on Robbie's end, until grabby kid spotted the forgotten soccer ball and swapped his attention to that instead. This re-instated the game, and Robbie bore witness to the most poorly executed game of soccer physically possible. There didn't seem to be any concept of teams, which turned it straight away into a free-for-all, and only two of the people playing seemed to know which limbs were supposed to be in contact with the ball. Grabby was on the floor trying to, well, grab the ball. Prank was throwing herself at it head first for reasons he couldn't fathom, and candy had mistaken it for a gobstopper. Pink and Sportaflop had given up going for the ball and were instead attempting to kick the people on the floor instead, as these were much easier targets. He could see the Mayor in the background, ambling along with a completely vacant expression. Sportaflop had obviously spotted him too, as he suddenly somersaulted backwards and cartwheeled over. The elf's mouth was forming something Robbie couldn't read, so he took the ear defenders off to listen. He was assaulted by the yelling of four children and grimaced, putting the defenders back on. There probably wasn't going to be anything worth hearing anyway. Sportaflop vaulted over a wall and the Mayor followed - without the vault, which meant that he would walk into the wall and bounce off it, look confused for a few seconds and then repeat the process. Sportaflop didn't notice.

Robbie glanced at the clock he kept in the corner on top of that pile of junk he'd been meaning to sort through but had never quite found the time to be bothered to do it. Eight o'clock. He turned back to the periscope to see Sportaflop grab the soccer ball and sprint off - presumably in the direction of his airship, which had been drunkenly sliding through the sky on its side for most of the day. The kids thought that this meant they were playing football, and threw themselves at the elf. He came crashing down on top of the ball, and the combined weight of five people was enough to burst it. Sportaflop froze, and the kids crawled back in shock. They watched as their hero carefully lifted himself off the ball, sat up, then cradled the flaccid fabric to his chest. He sat there, staring into space. Robbie took the defenders off, genuinely wondering if he'd hear sobbing. The only sound in the field was that of the Mayor bouncing off the wall. Eventually the children got bored and wandered off. Fifteen minutes later the Mayor did too. An hour passed, and Sportaflop was still sitting there motionless. The sky grew dark, and he watched the elf mourn the floppy ball. In between watching the evening infomercials, of course. By about eleven o'clock he was ready to get some sleep, so he took a final look through the periscope to see that the elf was still there. In the distance, he could see the airship slowly nose-diving to the ground until it hit a tree and began to deflate.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes:  
-There's a part 2?! Well, it was inevitable really.  
-I just like writing this stupid stuff  
-Might not be as funny as the first part, but I hope it makes someone smile!

At roughly twenty-seven-ish minutes past three in the morning Robbie woke up. This whole 'waking up to the sound of screaming' thing was starting to get a little old by now. He dragged himself out of his chair to go and glower out of his periscope. There was no moon and he didn't have night vision on his periscope, which made it rather hard to see. Eventually, he came across the source of the screams. Sportaflop, still wearing his ever-flashing crystal, was attempting to resurrect his airship by blowing it up with the air from his lungs. Robbie felt his heart sink. The manic elf hadn't bothered to patch up the hole properly, instead choosing to cover it with sticky tape. He was screaming into a small gap left open in the haphazard mess of tape, and it was achieving precisely nothing. Being the determined creature he was, though, he would definitely be keeping this up all night. Robbie sighed and picked up his trusty ear defenders, then returned to his chair.

By morning, the airship was once again in the sky. Not that it looked particularly stable, as it seemed to be dipping slightly to the left and spinning in circles. Upon zooming in he could see that the sticky tape was starting to peel. For once, the sound of kids playing hadn't come echoing down into the lair, putting Robbie in a good mood straight away. He pushed the periscope away then ducked as it swung back round again, missing his head by millimetres. The sun was out, the sky was clear and there were no noisy kids to be seen. Perfect conditions for him to take a walk on the surface. The first thing he noticed after ascending the ladder and climbing out of the tunnel was the tranquillity of the world around him. There was a gentle breeze which carried to him the scent of flowers and freshly cut grass. The sunlight was warm and seeped through his clothes and gave him the hope that today would be better than the day before. As he approached the centre of town he noticed the Mayor wandering around aimlessly. The Mayor waved at him and said something. He made no sound as he spoke, so Robbie assumed that he'd finally forgotten how speaking worked.

The next thing he came across reached a new level of strange. There, in the middle of Lazy Park was a giant ball of bubble wrap. Not just any ball of bubble wrap, but one with a small head sticking out of it. He couldn't tell which child the head belonged to as it was almost entirely consumed by even more of the stuff. It seemed relatively content to lie there and wriggle in its plastic cocoon, so he left it to it. Further on he discovered that someone had made changes to the apple tree. The trunk was encased in packing foam and upon looking around, he realised that this was only one of many things that had been swaddled in some form of protective material. Gates, fence tops and whole walls were covered. Some areas of the ground had large sheets of foam spread over them which made the whole place look like a soft play area. A flash of blue caught his eye and disappeared behind a wall. He had a feeling that it wouldn't be very hard to identify the culprit here. Against his better judgement, he decided to follow the blue.

Sportaflop led him to the playground. The whole place had been transformed - Robbie couldn't see anything that wasn't foam or bubble wrap. The irony was that this would ordinarily be a good place for a few extra safety measures, but it felt more like the nest of some evil… foam monster… or something. All this packing material was probably absorbing all the ambient sound, which was why he couldn't hear anything. Or was it? His head did feel abnormally heavy today. He put his hand up to his head and realised that he was still wearing his ear defenders. He took them off and hung them around his neck for safe keeping. This allowed him to hear the crinkling noise coming from behind that was getting progressively louder. He spun around just in time to see Sportaflop flying at him from behind a wall with a large sheet of bubble wrap in his outstretched arms. The elf tackled him and began to bundle him up like a spider with a fly, muttering under his breath all the while. As most of the mutterings came out sounding like single words, Robbie could only make out a few coherent phrases.  
"-safesafesafesafehavetokeepsafe-"  
And  
"-themupwrapthemupniceandsafe-"  
Coherent being relative, of course. The recurring theme was essentially that Sportaflop had completely lost the Sporta-plot.

Once Robbie was securely bound he was dragged closer to the play equipment. Behind the tall shape that may have been the slide there were two other victims. Prank kid was rolling from side to side in her bubble wrap tube, stopping whenever she hit an obstacle - which happened to be pink kid. Pink kid was taking advantage of her extra height giving her plastic tube more flexibility, and was wriggling around like a worm. Both pairs of eyes were dull and vacant. To add insult to injury, Sportaflop had put the bubbles on the outside, so there was nothing to pop with the tiny amount of room he had left in which to move his hands. The only thing he could physically do was wriggle, since rolling made him dizzy. Not ideal. His other option was to reason with the elf. Also not ideal, given the apparent language barrier. He noticed pink kid had wriggled just outside of their 'containment area', and the moment she did this Sportaflop appeared to put her back inside. Escape was probably impossible, so he decided not to bother trying. Being wrapped in bubble wrap wasn't all that bad, really... His final idea was his favourite, and it involved him going to sleep and staying asleep until someone woke him up by saving him. Like Sportaflop was technically supposed to.

His saviour turned out to be the Mayor, who had come to free his niece - how he had escaped the Sportaflop-bubble-wrap-attack Robbie had no idea. The Mayor and his niece were about to wander off until he hollered at them to unwrap him. They sat down next to him and began popping bubbles on the sheet he was wrapped in. He groaned. This was going to take a long time if he didn't take matters into his own hands, so to speak, because obviously, he couldn't use his hands. With a great deal of effort and hoping that Sportaflop was looking for other victims, he sat up. Conveniently enough, the elf had used sticky tape to seal the bubble wrap. This came off almost immediately. From there it was surprisingly easy to free himself from the plastic prison and he wasted no time in leaving. On the way back to his lair he caught sight of the airship making a spiralling descent into the ground. Upside down.


End file.
